To:THEIZVESTIA VTsIKEDITORIAL BOARD

Dictated:Dictated by phone on December 21, 1921Published:First published in 1933 in LeninMiscellany XXIII.

      Printed from a typewritten copy.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

      pages415b-416a.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ComradeSteklov, Editor,and Comrade A. Belyakov,IzvestiaEditorial Board

OnDecember 20,Izvestiacarried A. Belyakov’s article,
“New Ways of Reviving Railway
Transport”.[1]Will the
author of the article inform me, giving the most precise
indication possible of the corresponding publications:

1)Whatis the source of the information that the method
of using the ordinary, slightly modified, lorry instead of a
railway locomotive has been tested abroad and has
produced excellent results in general?

2)Thesame thing concerning the fact that in America
such lorries have been used on sidings.

3)Aboutsuch lorries being successfully used in the
American army during the war (there must be information
about this, if the use was successful, in the American,
French and British press).

4)Aboutthe fact that trials were staged in London on
the Russian engineer Kuznetsov’s idea, which have proved
that a 30 h.p. lorry easily pulled a 9–10 car train at a speed
of 20 versts an
hour.[2]

[1]Thearticle described the use of diesel locomotives abroad and
expressed the opinion that they could and should be widely used
on railways in Soviet Russia.

[2]Overthe text of Lenin’s letter, C.P.C. secretary Natalya
Lepeshinskaya wrote: “To the State Planning Commission (Presidium), to the
S.E.C.’s Scientific and Technical Department, to the People’s
Commissariat for Railways. P.S. Comrade Lenin wants to know whether
anything has been said about this in scientific and technical
literature and what is the view taken of this by specialists?” See also
this volume, Documents 568, 611 and 613.